Talk:University

The article is subject to a certain cultural bias

The fact that non-Europeans used different words for things and had a different religion and culture is not really an argument. The men who fought for Genghis Khan are described as an army. Yet they certainly didn't use that word, nor were they organised on the same lines as any modern army. So bearing in mind that we're using English not Arabic, Mandarin etc why does this article define university in such parochial terms. In addition the definition as it stands is not intellectually consistent. The article simply shifts the goalposts to exclude old non-European institutions but include the modern ones. Doc Meroe (talk) 00:57, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

The definition of University is a widely accepted one, which excludes all earlier institutions, both European and non-European. It can be traced back to Hastings Rashdall's 1895 Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, where he set out to distinguish universities from their European predecessors, particularly from Monastic and Cathedral schools. Most historians of universities were trained reading Rashdall, and most research into the history of universities has operated within the paradigm that Rashdall established.

That being said, I have some problems with the cross temporal and cross cultural validity of his model. Modern universities are no longer faculty governed corporations, so if we follow Rashdall strictly, we should not consider them universities. Furthermore, Rashdall did not consider educational institutions outside Western Europe.

However, finding a substitute for Rashdall's paradigm would require a lot of research into the history of earlier (and later) educational institutions and their varied and changing patterns of governance. We can't do that here, as Wikipedia isn't the place for original research. We can look into the scholarly literature, however, to see what kind of work has been done to answer the questions that concern many people here. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 04:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Note that the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge are still faculty governed corporations; however a definition which ends up with these being the only two universities left in the world might reasonably be considered over restrictive. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems that Clark Kerr's "multiversity" model has been applied by many higher ed scholars seeking to understand modern 20th and 21st century universities although I don't know if the definition has ever been strictly formalized. ElKevbo (talk) 12:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't require original research, it requires a literature search. In fact it doesn't even require that, it simply requires the current definition to be put into context. If it's clearly stated that the definition is as it is because institutions outside Europe weren't examined in the first instance. Then once they were examined, they were compared to a template derived from the original European study and disqualified from consideration for not matching it. Doc Meroe (talk) 10:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you cite reliable sources supporting that position? If so, it may be worth adding to the article. If not, it's original research. ElKevbo (talk) 12:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Hastings Rashdall himself is the source. The book is called "The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages" an "exactly what it says on the tin" title if ever there was one. According to the book, he examined the institution in Europe and then he wrote about the institution in Europe. That's the first instance. Then several of the sources already used in this article compare institutions to Rashdall's general template in order to determine whether or not they're universities. See "A History of the University in Europe" for evidence of this. Doc Meroe (talk) 13:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Escalation

Just as grades have escalated, so it seems have the designations of institutions of higher education. Once, I believe, a university was an institution that granted research doctorates in a variety of arts-and-science fields as well as terminal degrees in law and medicine. Nowadays it seems the term is being applied to very modest institutions for undergraduates which also offer a masters in education. Similarly, the Ph.D. degree used to be a research doctorate requiring a dissertation; nowadays one can get a Ph.D. online in pharmacology or physical therapy with no research required. Pretty soon everyone will have a doctorate, as Kurt Vonnegut predicted, say, in real estate or insurance sales, cosmetology, or mixology.Jim Lacey (talk) 15:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Religious and political control of universities

The paragraph has been censored to the current unsourced short version. Does it make this Wikipedia any better?Xx236 (talk) 10:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "has been censored". The section has had much that form for a long time. But I agree the section isn't useful, so I have just deleted it for simplicity. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 12:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

By censored I mean the removal of the main part of the paragraph related to Nazi and Soviet universities. If you don't like calling them universities say para-universities or terror-universities but ignoring them? Nazi and Soviet academicians published, participated in international conferences and boards. Some of them died because they believed in science, not because they ate too much. Cuban and North Korean Universities continue the Soviet tradition in different ways. Xx236 (talk) 12:50, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

History of European research universities has a fuzzy ending, Nazi and Communist regimes are ignored.Xx236 (talk) 13:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure when that material was removed: could you provide a diff? But in any event if you have relevant material to add and sources that back it then you should of course feel free to add something. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

There exists the article University education in Nazi Germany, de:Universität im Nationalsozialismus being much better. Xx236 (talk) 13:25, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

See also User:Xx236/Soviet university.Xx236 (talk) 07:19, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

There exists the book A History of the University in Europe, I don't have it.Xx236 (talk) 13:35, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

As I said, if you have relevant material to add and sources that back it then you should of course feel free to add something. Nobody else is likely to do it for you. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 12:20, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I think this article falls into the class of article which are written from the perspective of a specific group

I mean, what the article is talking about is "European style universities that started in the middle ages" just because the word "university" is derived from this and that in Latin. I think this is narrow minded and also Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Add to this the fact that Wikipedia has no article for "Institute of higher education" and you see a kind of contempt for those institutes from other cultures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gypscholar (talk • contribs) 21:31, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Classification Section

The example given for states is Massachusetts. However, most of the state colleges in Massachusetts just received university status (Bridgewater State, Fitchburg State, Framingham State, Salem State...), and few if any have doctorate degrees available. I work for one of the above schools, and I can tell you, they have no doctorate program at this time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.206.236.100 (talk) 14:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)